08.06 A friend in the eternal tabernacles
VI. A FRIEND IN THE ETERNAL TABERNACLES
“Mammon” is to be used, secondly, as a means of providing resources which will stand us in good stead when we pass from this present scene into the eternal world. The unjust steward knew that his gains were gone past recovery, but his astuteness provided him with friends who would save 1 him, in the hour of his dismissal, from beggary. We too know that an hour will come when all our Mammon our money, comforts, successes, position will “fail.”
Naked we came into the world, and naked 1 we shall leave it. Dust we are and to dust we shall return. We cannot take with us beyond the grave our business or the success it may have gained for us, our money or the pleasures it may have brought. But we can take the good we may have won or done. The moral qualities with which our use of Mammon may have strengthened and disciplined our character, the kindness it may have enabled us to show, the compassion it may have enabled us to realize, the selfsacrifice it may have enabled us to practise, the strength and cheer it may have enabled us to give to our fellows these are secured for us, waiting as it were in the eternal world to speak for us, and to welcome us.
It is well for us to contemplate that solitary journey which awaits us all when death has knocked at the door and summoned us forth. Let me quote the words of Samuel Rutherford: “Take with you in your journey what you may carry with you, your conscience, faith, hope, patience, meekness, goodness, brotherly kindness; for such wares as these are of great price in the high and new country whither ye go. As for other things which are but this world’s vanity and trash... ye will do best not to carry them with you. Ye found them here; leave them here.” Mammon itself, after all, is “but this world’s vanity and trash.”
It shall fail that is certain. It has no value or credit beyond the grave. But the good we do with it that is laid up for us in the new life to which we pass, so that we can draw upon it when we shall be stripped of all our possessions. We shall meet it as a friend ready to receive us into the eternal tabernacles.
TAGS: [Parables]